The Guardian, a British newspaper, has seen 70,000 downloads of its paid iPhone application in a month, proving that charging for mobile content can work for publications.

Guardian?s iPhone application is available worldwide. This news should be a wake-up call to publishers looking to extend their brand ? mobile can do that and bring in revenue.

?Success starts and ends with delighting your audience,? said Jonathon Moore, mobile product manager at Guardian News and Media, London. ?Media organizations ? even large ones such as ourselves ? can't change user behavior or consumer patterns overnight.

?So the only thing that matters is producing a product that you're proud of,? he said.

The application is $3.99, a price the publication deemed fair for the level of content and functionality it offers (see story).

Success in monetization
Features of the application include editorial content such as news, features and opinion pieces, photo galleries and audio, all of which can be personalized for the consumer.

The application was designed in-house and built by 2ergo.

Guardian?s application is available in Finland, Latvia, Romania, Austria, France, Lithuania, Slovakia, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Greece, Malta (Republic of), Spain, Czech Republic, Hungary, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Estonia, Italy, Portugal, Australia, Canada, Britain, Ireland and the United States.

The publication?s Web site at http://www.Guardian.co.uk saw 35,792,874 unique users in November 2009. Its mobile site at http://m.guardian.co.uk  had 927,000 unique users in November. Nearly half of the mobile users accessed the site via an iPhone or iPod touch.

Guardian used social media, Twitter in particular, as a marketing tool. Mr. Moore said he spent nearly every day monitoring every tweet that has mentioned the Guardian iPhone application and responding to consumers, feeding back answers to their questions and noting their responses for future features.

The Guardian also had an advertising campaign across Web, print and mobile. On the mobile site, the publication specifically targeted iPhone users.

Mr. Moore said even without marketing, publications can still achieve success if they manage to break into the Top 25 or Top 50 applications listed in the App Store.

?If you can stay true to your principles and produce something that excites people then you've always got a chance,? Mr. Moore said.

The Guardian application has a rating of four and half stars out of five and more than 600 comments.

Pocket-sized Guardian
Consumers can browse the application offline and save articles to read later.

The Guardian claims its application has an unrivalled news search facility.

Consumers can customize the homepage and flag contributors for quicker access to their latest articles.

The application also has a trending feature that lets users access the most popular Guardian articles at any given time.

The application does not currently feature advertisements.

Mr. Moore said media organizations need a good mix of editorial thinking and technologists to develop the proper mobile content.

?Well, without giving away the secret recipe, I'd have to say you need to start with ambition and it helps if you've got the right mix of people,? Mr. Moore said. ?The mobile industry is still plagued with so-called experts who are only too willing to tell you what to do and how to do it.

?Most of them never produced anything of note,? he said. ?So beware. Step back, take your time, and produce something of quality.

?If it doesn't sell, then there's probably not a market for it ? yet at least.?